Sorry for the recent radio blog silence. We’re still alive. I’ll try and give a recap of the past few weeks. I think we’re starting to fit in here in AZ. The temperature is getting cooler. Don’t get me wrong, it is still hot, but not quite as hot as it was when we moved in. I’m looking forward to a nice 70 degrees when it’s bitter cold in Iowa. I’ll be the first to admit that I think I’m going to miss the snow though, but I don’t think Jess will mind the winter warmth. I’m just scared that it’s going to make me soft. Pretty soon I’ll need to put on a sweater when it his 65 degrees.

We’ve been keeping busy the past several weeks. Labor day weekend Jess and I drove to Santa Rosa, New Mexico to meet up with Jon and Liz and dive in a big natural springs called Blue Hole. It was a nice trip (though a pretty crummy hotel), and was good to get in some diving and see Jon and Liz. You can see photos from the trip in my Flickr account, or on Jon and Liz’s site. Jess and I then spent an extra day in Albuquerque wandering around. We explored “Old Town,” which has some nice shops, and had some good Mexican food at a place with a Spanish name that loosely translates to “Party House.”

The next weekend, we met a friend and went up Mt. Lemmon again for some geocaching… and of course some more delicious pie! If you can’t tell, we enjoy the excursions up the mountain (and we REALLY enjoy the pie!). I’m looking forward to trying out skiing up there. Yes, you read me correctly. I said skiing in Arizona. It was a bit of a shock to me as well, but apparently they get some snow on the summit, and have a ski area (which we’ve driven by a couple times now). So that is definitely something we’ll want to check out later in the year. We’ll be able to get those winter coats out eventually.

Jess’s sister is here now visiting for Jess’s birthday. We’ve been doing a little exploring (mostly through the various malls in Tucson) with her here. I think I’m just about shopped out. Tomorrow we’ve got reservations to take a cave tour in some caverns southeast of Tucson. Everyone we’ve talked to said they’re pretty cool, so that should be fun.

In other news, I’m finally employed. I start Monday at The University of Arizona as their new Web Manager. I’ll be working with arizona.edu and uanews.org. Being a house husband for a while was nice, but I’m really looking forward to getting back into the working world. I’m sure Jess is disappointed that she won’t be able to leave me “honey-do” lists in the morning any more. Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Next weekend we’re going to the White Mountains with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Robert. They’ve got a cabin for the weekend, so we’ll head up there Friday night and just relax for a while. From what we’ve been told, there’s a few shops, and I’m sure we’ll do some geocaching while we’re there too. It should be a nice weekend away from Tucson.

Hello, everyone! After many hours of unpacking, our apartment is finally presentable enough to show you. Check out our apartment when you get the chance. For those of you who don’t know, we are living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in Northwest Tucson. So far it has been working out pretty well. There are two pools on site, a workout room, a tennis court, a putting green, and a zen garden. The zen garden really sold Scott and me on the place. 😉 (Actually, we haven’t been able to find the zen garden yet…it’s hiding somewhere).

Yesterday we went to Mount Lemmon to cool off a bit. Mount Lemmon is about an hour’s drive north of Tucson. It was much cooler on top of the mountain (about 20 degrees cooler!) than it is in the city. We did a geocache, which was a lot of fun (when we actually found the geocache). We attempted 2 geocaches, but the first one we tried didn’t turn out so well. We found ourselves hiking up the mountainside in the forest without any trails in sight. After about 30 minutes of this I called it quits. (Sorry, Kieran, I’m not a die-hard geocacher). But at least we found the other geocache we started!

Once we were done geocaching, we headed up to the summit and ate at a little cafe that had AWESOME pie! I had strawberry rhubarb and Scott had raspberry. Don’t worry…we took pictures of the huge pieces of pie! When folks come and visit us we will most definitely have to make a trip back to the top of Mount Lemmon for some delicious pie!

Sorry this post has been so long coming. Who knew moving and unpacking was so time consuming (everyone knew that!)? We are finally just about settled in our new apartment in Tucson. We have just a couple stray boxes left to empty and some random odds and ends still sitting around, but for the most part everything has found a place. We just need to put pictures up on the wall now.

The big move turned out OK, and we didn’t really lose anything… except a bit of our sanity. It was a LONG drive in a BIG truck. Fortunately outside of Bessie’s little transmission fluid leak there weren’t any difficulties. After a delayed start, we made it to Atlantic and spent the night at my parent’s house. I was a little nervous initially driving the truck with the car attached, making a LONG truck even longer. I think about 3/4 of the way there I really started to get the hang of it. We learned how to use a diesel pump at at truck stop (it isn’t as easy as you’d think!). We left Atlantic bright and early the next morning and took off for Denver. Bessie in the lead and Jess and her mom following in the green CR-V (named Emerald – her friends call her Emmy). Bessie did pretty well that day outside of a few mountain slow-downs, but all in all a decent trip across flat Nebraska. We arrived at Jon and Liz’s house around 6:00 and relaxed a bit before a delicious dinner (you can grill Jon!), and then some game time on their Wii. Both my dad and Jess’s mom did pretty well for their first time on the Wii (Cindy wiped the floor with us in bowling!). We hit the sack and once again got up bright and early for the longest day of our travels. We hit a few mountains as we cut through New Mexico. Bessie had a few issues again getting up some of the bigger hills (we were seriously going 35mph up one of them!). Outside of that it wasn’t a bad drive. The scenery was nice. We saw a couple of full rainbows as we drove through the mountains and a few funny signs. Our favorite being Elephant Butt(e). We got to know Springer, New Mexico, a little too well as we searched for diesel (BTW, there is only ONE working diesel pump in the entire town!!). We also stopped for a short stint in Las Vegas (New Mexico) for dinner. We were a little disappointed in comparing it to the other Las Vegas that we knew. So after a really exciting day of driving, we finally arrived in Tucson around 10pm. Nancy and Robert were expecting us and had snacks laid out and ready. We relaxed a bit with them and conked out for the night. Our three days of travel were finally over!

How to keep yourself occupied while driving across the country in a big truck:

• Madlibs… sometimes using only words on signs by the road (example 1, example 2)
• Count fellow Penske trucks, and waive like crazy when they go by
• Eat “Good & Plenty,” then try to find the ones that fell out of the box all over the cab
• Coach Bessie up a big hill, and see how fast we can get her going down (record was 85mph)
• “Gold leader to Green leader… do you copy?”

We set out the next morning for our new apartment after swinging by the Penske place to return the trailer (no need to drag an empty trailer around town). We pulled Bessie in and started unpacking. At least the sky was overcast that day, but it was sure hot! Another piece that made unpacking more fun (like we need anything else!) was the apartment was set back, so we had to drag stuff about a half a block, and then up a flight of stairs to get it in. If there is one thing I think we’ve learned from this experience it is: HIRE PROFESSIONAL MOVERS!!! We’re already starting to save for the next time.

So now for the past week and a half, we’ve been running around getting situated. We’re pretty much unpacked. We’ll post photos of our new place soon. I did put some new photos of the move-in up here. We’ve now got official Arizona driver’s licenses and AZ plates (so even though we drive like we’re not from around here, we at least look like we’re from here!). We’ve put together way too many flat pack pieces of furniture (after a trip to Target and IKEA). We’re also getting to know the area better too. We still need to get out exploring a bit more, but fortunately Tucson is a pretty easy city to navigate, and I think we have the major roads down.

Jess starts work on Monday so I think things will start to get into a routine soon enough. We’ll keep you posted.

The truck has arrived and (after a lot of manual labor) is unloaded. More photos and info to follow, as soon as we get the internet hooked up.

Well, we’re on the home stretch. We are currently about 2 and a half hours outside of Tucson. Today had a lot of ups and downs. Bessie struggled a bit with some of the ups. It looks to have flattened out now though so we’re able to go her blazing top speed of 70 mph the rest of the way. The landscape was nice today (a welcome change from the plains). Tomorrow we’ll get to sleep in a bit before dropping off the car trailer and heading to our new apartment. Hopefully the weather isn’t too bad as we lug in our furniture. I’m sure we’ll let you know how it goes.

We successfully made it to Denver! We pulled in around 6:00 last night. It took about 10 hours which isn’t bad considering our truck only goes 70mph (and less than that up hill). Otherwise she’s (we’ve lovingly named our truck Bessie) been doing pretty well. She was struggling a when we first got to the mountains, but is doing great after an overnight rest on Jon and Liz’s street. Today is the LONG day. We’ll hopefully pull into Tucson sometime tonight. Stay tuned… we’re nearly there.

Turns it was just a bolt that needed tightening. Mr. Penske repair man assures us we’re good to go (thankfully without and truck transfer). We were just a bit delayed, but made it to Atlantic without any problems. Off to Denver tomorrow!

So far it hasn’t been a real great start. All we had to do was hook up my car and hit the road. After hooking up the trailer, we noticed a pretty large puddle of red fluid on the ground dripping from our truck. So we’re waiting at the Penske shop for the final say from the mechanic. I’m scared that we’re going to have to unload and load up another truck. Have I mentioned moving SUCKS! More to follow…

These last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind for Scott and me.  Our wedding was absolutely fantastic.  Ok, I might be a little biased.  But really, it was so great to see everyone and celebrate.  We have some wedding pictures that we have been meaning to post for a really long time.  These pictures are from Scott’s camera so check them out if you have a minute.  We also have pictures posted from our rehearsal dinner and gift-opening.

The Wednesday after our wedding we left on our honeymoon to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  It was an awesome vacation!  The first day we did the canopy tour where we went to the rain forest and did the zip lines set up there.  It was absolutely amazing to be swinging through the trees at 400+ feet!  On the second day we went scuba diving around an island that was about an hour boat ride away from the port.  Scott took his underwater camera case along and was able to take some pretty great underwater photos.  The remaining days were spent lounging by the beach and soaking up the sun.  We did fit in parasailing, which was pretty incredible, I have to say.  Initially I was nervous about a little speed boat pulling me around the bay so I made Scott go first. 😉  He managed so I figured that I could handle it.  Let me tell you, if you ever have the opportunity to do it, you should, because it is an amazing experience being up so high above the water.  All in all, Scott and I had a really great honeymoon.  Thanks to everyone who contributed to our honeyfund account!  You definitely made our honeymoon a lot more fun.

We are currently in the middle of packing…and it’s pretty UN-fun.  After the excitement of our wedding and honeymoon, the reality that we need to pack up everything has finally set in and frankly I want to go back to Mexico!  But we are very excited to go somewhere new and packing is just a necessary evil, I suppose.  We’ll be picking up our 22-foot moving truck on Sunday and then heading out to Arizona on Wednesday, August 1.  We plan on arriving in Tucson on August 3 and then we’ll move into our apartment the following day.  Hopefully it all goes well!  We’ll be sure to post pictures of our move and our new place as soon as we can once we arrive.  Hopefully Scott and his dad can drive that 22-foot long moving truck without any problems!  Oh yeah, and did I mention that we’re towing Scott’s car behind the truck?  Yeah, it’s going to be LONG!